March 2012

March 27, 2012

Jets coach Rex Ryan said the Cowboys defense will be much better in 2012 under his brother Rob Ryan than 2011 just because they will have the benefit an off season program to get more comfortable with his scheme. The Cowboys didn't have that last year because of the lockout and had to learn the scheme on the fly in training camp.

"It's not a vanilla defense," Ryan said. "If you play vanilla defense in this league you are going to get busted. It takes time to implement things. Having the minicamps and training camp I think will help."

Ryan said the Cowboys did very good last year in spite of the lack of an off season, improving from 23rd in total defense (351.8 yards per game) and 31st in scoring defense (27.3 points per game) in 2010 to 14th (343.2) and 16th (21.7), respectively, in 2011.

He expects the Cowboys to rise to become the second-best defense in 2012 but no further.

"I'll be honest with you -- they've got a chance to be second in the league in defense," Ryan said during the AFC coaches' breakfast Tuesday morning at the league meetings. "(They) improved a touchdown a game over the previous season. I think that's impressive. That's under the radar. I think you get criticized because they assume you took over a top-rated defense. That wasn't the case."

He said the Cowboys are getting a hardworker who was battled tested against some of the best receivers in the NFL and who will be perfect for defensive coordinator Rex Ryan’s system in Dallas.

"First of all, he's been able to line up on the field and go one-on-one with some of the top receivers in our division and some of the top receivers in the NFL to prove he can cover, that he can handle the pressure it takes to play that position,'' Crennel said. "If he has a bad play, he's able to put that behind him and go on and play the next one. I've seen him develop and grow in confidence.

"I think they have a good player and he will fit well in Rob (Ryan's) system.''

Crennel said Carr has it all: size, strength, speed and toughness. He said he still has room to improve by getting his hands on the ball for more interceptions.

"I think they're getting a very good cover corner,'' Crennel said. "He's got length. He's got speed. He's developed a mental toughness about playing the position.

"I saw him improve the two years he was with us. He became a very consistent corner, making plays on the ball. If there is one thing that Brandon can do better and probably will do better is begin to intercept the ball more.''

Of Carr’s eight career interceptions, four came last season. So that’s an area he is already improving in.

New York Jets coach Rex Ryan says the Dallas Cowboys got a good safety in Brodney Pool and can have the second best defense in the league (behind his) in their second year under his brother and Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan.

Bengals coach Marvin Lewis says the team is working to add former Cowboys cornerback Terence Newman in free agency.

Newman was cut by the Cowboys two weeks ago because of his age, salary and declining play.

But the Bengals, according to Lewis, "would love to have Newman our football team". He said the former 2003 first round pick is excited to join the Bengals where he will be reunited with defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer from his early days with the Cowboys when Newman said he played his best football.

"We would love to still add terence to our football team," Lewis said. "As he said his best years of his career was when he was playing for Mike Zimmer. So he is excited about that opportunity to. Hopefully we will get something concluded here fairly quickly."

Asked he felt Newman still has something left, Lewis smiled and said "we would love to have Terence on our football team."

Chargers coach Norv Turner weighed in on the Tony Romo-Troy Aikman debate stirred up last week when the Hall of Famer and three time Super Bowl champion magnanimously said that the current Cowboys quarterback was better than he ever was.

Turner, who was the offensive coordinator on Aikman’s three title teams and who has faced Romo as an opponent, intimated that there is no debate and the issue shouldn’t even be up to discussion.

While Romo has already surpassed most of Aikman’s passing records and is on pace to rewrite the Cowboys record books, Turner said his former pupil got it done when it mattered most: late in games and in the playoffs. Romo has one career playoff win.

“I don’t know that I can make an evaluation on Tony,” Turner said. “I see him. I don’t study him. To me the whole key to that position and right now the numbers are always inflated so it still comes to playing great in the fourth quarter, playing great with the game on the line, and obviously playing great in the playoffs. It’s hard to think or for me to name three or four guys that were better than Troy in that situation.

“So I think Troy was being very nice and diplomatic,” Turner continued. “There aren’t many guys I would list better than Troy Aikman. It’s not any thing of against Tony Romo or any devaluation. There are a lot of guys who make plays throughout games. There are guys who make special plays when the game’s on the line, plays that make the difference between winning and losing. That was Troy’s greatest strength.”

That those situations have been Romo’s greatest weakness was left unsaid by Turner.

March 26, 2012

Now it will be left up to an independent arbitrator to decide on what has become a heavyweight battle, pitting the NFL against two of its marquee and most profitable teams, the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins.

That was the stance the stance taken by the Cowboys and the NFL regarding the team’s decision to challenge the league’s move to take $46 million in combined cap space from the Cowboys and Redskins for legally dumping salary into the uncapped season of 2010.

The NFL Management Council and the NFL Players Association, combined with the NFL on the decision, were also named in the grievance by the Cowboys and Redskins.

The arbitration will be heard by Professor Stephen Burbank of the University of Pennsylvania. No date has been set for a hearing.

Owner Jerry Jones was slated to discuss the matter with local reporters on Monday but canceled, declining further comment.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell did likewise during a press conference concluding the first official day of the NFL Owners meetings in Palm Beach, Fla.

He referred all questions to a statement released by the NFL, officially outlining the agreement it made with the NFL Players Association to set the salary cap for 2012 and reallocate salary cap from from the Cowboys ($10 million) and Redskins ($36 million) to 28 other clubs.

Per the statement, the reallocation aspect of the agreement is intended to address competitive issues arising from contract practices by those clubs in 2010 to avoid certain cap charges in 2011 and later years.

According to the league, the agreement will promote competitive balance without reducing the salary cap or player spending.

Jones did state his case to the other owners during a meeting Monday morning.

According to a Cowboys source, the team feels it has a good case largely because the NFL management council originally approved the contracts in 2010.

The contract at issue for the Cowboys is the six-year, $57-million deal the team gave receiver Miles Austin, which included an unprecedented $17 million base salary.

Even though 2010 was an uncapped year, meaning the teams could presumably spend as much as they wanted, the league warned teams to not use the year as a financial dumping ground to preserve future competitive balance.

The Cowboys took the words uncapped year literally, pointing out if league had a problem with the contract it should have made it know then.

What’s also unstated is that if the league instructed owners not to spend money in 2010 then they essentially engaged in collusion against the players in order to preserve “future competitive balance.”